"Lotus Pedals" Painting

Nancy Hilliard Joyce was born in Greenville, South Carolina and was accepted into the Governor’s School for the Arts in Visual Art at the age of 16. Nancy originally moved to Asheville in 1997 after completing her Masters in Art Education from the University of New Mexico. At that time, she lived in an area along the French Broad River called “Chicken Hill” in a small one-room house which sits above what is now known as Asheville’s “River Arts District” [RAD]. Nancy worked as an artist out of her house as there was no formal RAD association at that time. In addition to working as a visual artist, Nancy also worked as an Outreach Curator at the Asheville Art Museum. She left Asheville a few years later to live and travel throughout the United States and abroad. Finally, Nancy returned to Asheville again in June of 2011 with her husband and two children. Today, Nancy sits on the Board of Trustees at the Asheville Art Museum and is an active member of the RAD Association. She is passionate about giving back to children in need and regularly uses her art as a platform to raise money for charity and non-profit organizations. Nancy’s paintings are intricate in form and filled with layers of color, perspective, gestures and expression. Her paintings are most often created with a range of matte acrylic hues, various hand-made papers and finished with touches of oil colors. She will sometimes sand or wipe down layers to reveal under-layers and build up other sections creating texture and depth; a process that may go on for weeks or end in one day. Nancy’s work is appreciated and widely collected throughout the United States in many homes, corporate offices and hotels; she is known as a contemporary, mixed-media artist with an Americana flair. Past projects include: A permanent installation of her 75″ x 148″ triptych painting into Greenville, South Carolina’s newest mixed-use hub building called, ONE. This piece can be seen in the main lobby hanging beneath crimson, modern pendant lamp forms. During the Summer of 2013, Nancy curated an installation for a group of select artists in Western North Carolina. She has several large-scale pieces on the walls of EDISON’S, which is located inside the historic OMNI Grove Park Inn. Nancy also has a collection of work displayed inside the boutique hotel, The Windsor Asheville. In 2014, Nancy created a one-of-a-kind painting for Green Man Brewery which was used for the label of a seasonal, wet-hopped IPA beer.